Fiction: ‘The Remembered Soldier' by Anjet Daanje
The Dutch writer Anjet Daanje has borrowed loosely from the Mangin case for her big, powerful drama of love and memory, 'The Remembered Soldier.' The Flemish-speaking soldier of this novel is called Noon Merckem, because in 1917 he was discovered around midday, wandering around a battlefield near Merckem, a village in the Flanders region of Belgium (he appears to have been involved in the Battle of Passchendaele). Since the end of the war, he has lived in the Guislain Asylum in Ghent, alone and with no idea of who he used to be. But in 1922 Julienne Coppens, a Belgian woman responding to an advertisement, recognizes him as her missing husband. He is, she says, Amand Stephaan Coppens, the proprietor of a photography studio and the father of two.
Amand, as he must now get used to being called, leaves the asylum with Julienne, and Ms. Daanje progresses patiently through the stages of their acclimation. Initially he resides in their home as a guest, anxious and uncomfortable. Julienne is standoffish as well, assailed by longings but fearful of scaring Amand away. Gradually they begin to work side by side in the photography studio. Proximity softens their doubts and an intimacy blooms. For Amand, who cannot remember their earlier married life, this is a newlywed's passion, and the novel revels in the excitement of his 'puppy love.'
The rub is that, in his dreams, Amand's memories are slowly returning, but they are not of Julienne—they are nightmares of battlefield slaughter that he cannot reconcile with his newfound domestic happiness. Here 'The Remembered Soldier' begins to explore the gray area between performance and reality. Amand and Julienne embrace the roles of the joyful couple reunited by the hand of providence while papering over Amand's panic attacks and strange, dissociative episodes. As word spreads of his homecoming and Amand plays the part of 'the miracle man' returned from the dead, he feels surprised by 'how easily his life can be reshaped into an inspiring story, correct in every factual detail, yet a lie from beginning to end.'
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Reacting to the administration sending Venezuelans to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González expressed support earlier this year for the U.S. government's crackdown on the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang, but urged President Trump not to penalize honest, hard-working Venezuelans seeking refuge abroad. 'We urge the competent authorities... to take extreme precautions when administering justice, clearly distinguishing between criminals employed by the Maduro regime to commit crimes abroad and the vast majority of innocent migrants,' the opposition leaders said in a joint statement, 'thus avoiding the unjust criminalization of Venezuelan migrants in general.'
